Mice
by Ivystormrandomness
Summary: Redpaw of MouseClan (well, not really, but close enough) hates mice, has a weird mentor, and apparently has one-third ownership right to a plot of land where the Twolegs should use to build houses but don't. Updates on a whim. (Or on whim. I forgot.)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Hi. Uhm… it's the first chapter. It's bound to be slow going. Just a quick reminder, I'm probably not gonna put in romance, so those of you looking for romancefics, wait maybe three years for me to mature and understand the meaning of love. Otherwise, everyone's welcome! **

Chapter One: The Abundance Of Mice

Redpaw hated mice.

Or more accurately, the taste of mice. He didn't mind the hunting of mice, personally.

But the eating of mice? No. No eating mice. He'd rather starve than eat more than three mice a moon.

"Eating mice won't kill you, Redpaw. It's not eating them that kills you, especially as this clan's territory is full of mice," his mentor, Roseshine had told him fifteen times in the last moon.

Redpaw didn't care. All he ate was comprised of the scrawny birds that flew across territories and, though he never told anyone, random bits of prey from the neighbouring clans, LeafClan and IceClan. And the best part was, the only one who had ever caught him was Roseshine, who had been taking a walk near the IceClan border. She hadn't really cared, just given him another mouse lecture.

"I'm going out to hunt," he told Roseshine. Roseshine was an ok mentor; she would have been borderline bad if she hadn't let Redpaw do whatever he wanted after she had finished training him.

"Sure, off you go then." Roseshine seemed slightly dreamy, like she was about to drift off up, up and away into a cloud. But that was Roseshine, except when Redpaw complained about the abundance of mice.

Redpaw dashed out of camp and there he was. Alone in the forest, free to roam around without Roseshine and his stupid furball of a littermate, Juniperpaw.

After rolling in a patch of herbs (he had no idea what it was), he turned in the opposite direction- towards the IceClan border, again.

_Time for a piece of non-mouse prey._

He strolled across the border as though it were nothing…

And came face-to-face with an IceClanner.

The first thing Redpaw noticed about the she-cat was that she was _tiny_. Really, really tiny, with such fluffy silverish fur that she looked like a new-born kit.

"Get out of our territory_,_ _Mouse_Clanner!" the kit-apprentice (Redpaw hoped she was an apprentice) squeaked. Absolutely every part of her seemed kit-like (up to the MouseClan joke), yet what would a kit be doing out of the camp?

He decided to use her size against her, like how he did with Juniperpaw.

"Make me, _kit_."

"Kit" bristled. "At least kits know not to cross borders! _And _for your information, I'm going to be a warrior in a moon."

Redpaw blinked slowly. That _fluffball _was older than he was? (He still had two moons to go. Two more moons with Rose-head-in-the-clouds-shine.)

"Get. Out!"

Before Redpaw could Get. Out!, a particular someone arrived on a walk again.

"Redpaw! On IceClan territory again! Get out! At once!"

If you didn't know her, Roseshine was the perfect embodiment of "strict, furious mentor". But Redpaw did know her- at least, had already known her for four moons- and heard the slight tremble in her voice. Just a sassy response at the right time and-

"Out." Roseshine's voice was deadly soft this time, with no trembling at all. Redpaw had absolutely never seen her like that before, so either she was extremely mad or she was extremely, extremely mad.

But why did she even care? He hadn't even managed to catch a single thing.

Redpaw stepped over the border. "Done."

"Good."

Roseshine shooed the tiny apprentice away and led Redpaw back to camp silently. She didn't even bother to give Redpaw a mouse lecture (which was good, but extremely unnatural for Roseshine) until she stopped at an old oak tree near the StoneClan territory.

"Honestly, Redpaw, I expected better from you," his mentor began. "I've told you so many times-"

"Too many," said apprentice interjected. "Way too many."

"_However_ many, you don't seem to have listened to a single thing I said. The first thing you ever learnt was the Warrior Code: Do not go trampling over borders!"

"I didn't go trampling, I went looking for food because all I get for food are stinky mice!"

Roseshine didn't seem to be listening, ironically. "Mice, yes… you don't want mice? There aren't mice in IceClan… but mice… satisfying..."

Redpaw groaned internally. _She's gone drifting off again. To where, no one knows._

He took his chance to slip off back into camp.

The next day, Redpaw was disturbed by Roseshine drifting into the apprentices' den. The other apprentices, Juniperpaw and Mousepaw (the clan was short on apprentices) were still fast asleep.

"Dawn patrol?" Redpaw blinked the sleepiness away halfheartedly. The sky was still a foggy gray and it seemed nothing like dawn.

"Don't be silly, it's not dawn. We're going somewhere."

"Where?"

"Somewhere."

Redpaw knew it was pointless to ask where. But he soon realized it was quite point_ful _when she brought him out of the Clan territory, into the territory of no one.

She led him into a weird, huge patch of empty land where there were absolutely no cats.

"Do you remember how to get here?"

_No. I do not._

"Sort of."

"Good. Now go back to camp. Don't talk to anyone about this place unless they ever mention Frostpaw to you. And don't tell your friends."

_Frostpaw?_

"Yes, Frostpaw… the apprentice you had the pleasure of meeting… innocent little thing. She loves mice, bless her."

_Ok, what in the name of StarClan is happening?_

**Yeah, I don't get myself at times. What on earth has just happened? Roseshine is the weirdest weirdo to ever weird. **

**And apparently Juniperpaw is a girl. The characters I only have a loose idea of where they're gonna fit in, not even their appearance, but I actually have Juniper's warrior name in mind. She'll make an appearance, I hope soon-ish?**

**Redpaw will not hook up with Frostpaw.**

**Roseshine… I swear, the only thing that I currently like about her is her name and her patch of land.**

**Oh, and they aren't the Dark Forest 2.0. I'm not that stupid.**


	2. Chapter 2

… **:) let's begin, shall we?**

**So, (I love doing this) REVIEWS!**

**Mountainshine: I have your popcorn. *evil grin***

**KT-FeatherSage (did I type that wrong?): Thanks, I guess! :D (me: has no idea how to reply)**

Chapter Two: Juniperpaw appears

Redpaw had just fallen back asleep when he felt a heavy weight on his back and scented an extremely familiar scent.

"Get off, Juniperpaw." he muttered, before curling himself into an even tighter ball.

His sister ignored him. It wasn't hard.

"Go and bug Mousepaw, ok?" complained a half-asleep, very grumpy and still very confused Redpaw.

She rolled over back into her nest.

Redpaw was mad.

First thing in the morning his stupid furball of a mentor drags him to the middle of nowhere where there is nothing and then Juniperpaw picks today of all days to jumpscare him. And then, guess what?

"Redpaw, are you so lazy that you honestly expect to start training at sunhigh?"

_Mouse dung!_

Of course he expected to start training at sunhigh. HE GOT WOKEN UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO WALK FOR MOONS TO SEE A PATCH OF EMPTY LAND!

He tried not to scream that at Roseshine and instead managed a "Yeah I expected to."

"Honestly, you're lucky I didn't send you on the dawn patrol. Today we'll be training with Juniperpaw and Cloudleaf."

Cloudleaf was a huge, annoying tom who loved telling the apprentices about that _one _time he caught multiple mice in one go. No one had any idea how many- it had morphed from five, to eight, to nine, and apparently, as he was striding over to Redpaw, trying to engage him in his tall tale, eleven.

Redpaw shuddered as Cloudleaf continued, "I pounced on the sixth mouse gracefully. Its delicate neck snapped…"

There probably weren't even that many mice in the forest. Disgusting, and it seemed like telling this story was Cloudleaf's form of teaching apprentices to hunt.

Roseshine had a slightly faraway look on her face.

Juniperpaw had a very bored look on her face. She sidled up to Redpaw. "He tells me this story every time we go hunting. We spend more time storytelling than doing stuff. But the fighting's ok. You're better, though. Roseshine must be really great. She-"

"She lectures me about mice every time I eat."

"Oh."

Cloudleaf seemed to have finished his story, or maybe he realized that no one was listening. "Stop that twittering away like irritating little birds, let's hunt. Roseshine?"

Roseshine jumped out of her fur and landed back in. "What did I miss?"

"You missed his story." replied Redpaw.

"Yeah, the story." Juniperpaw chimed in.

Roseshine looked distinctly unimpressed.

And so the four set out on a hunting practice. It consisted of "Step _lightly_, Redpaw. You aren't a Twoleg monster, now are you?" and "Juniperpaw, what in the name of StarClan are you doing?" and pulling Juniperpaw out of a bush.

But Redpaw relished catching the mice. For some reason hearing the mice

as he snapped their necks was an odd satisfaction in itself… and even the unsatisfactory kills, the ones where the mice turned into blood fountains, oozing blood gently from their wounds…

"REDPAW?!" Juniperpaw stared at him. "What's so cool about that dead mouse that you stare at it for ages and ages and ages? Don't you hate mice?"

_Mouse dung! I'm turning into Roseshine._

"Nothing, just… celebrating the kill…? Uh, yay?"

"Like Cloudleaf?" There was a glimmer in his littermate's eyes.

_Am I turning into both our mentors?_

Hunting training/patrol (first training, then the moment Redpaw got back, patrol time) took most of Redpaw's time and most of Redpaw's energy. And sanity.

It had also seemed to strip Juniperpaw of her remaining sanity. Somewhere around the end of patrol, she had started copying Redpaw and making him thoroughly sick and tired of life itself. If you could call Juniperpaw life.

(It was probably meant to be funny, though. Cloudleaf thought it was. "That's the spirit! Learn as much as you can from everyone you meet!")

And THEN they make Roseshine pop up.

So pop up and try to drag him off to the mysterious patch of land she did.

"What _is _that place?!"

Nobody cared.

_Am I her mentor, or what… _

"GIVE ME ANSWERS OR GIVE ME DEATH!"

Roseshine unsheathed her claws. "Are you sure, Redpaw?"

_No. _Well, apparently, no answers from her. Bad. Very bad news.

"We're here!" That was Roseshine.

"And what is _he _doing here?" squeaked someone.

As we all know, it was Frostpaw.

**Hiya! Honestly, this was really short. But I'm all out of lifeblood aka I'm sick and tired of life itself. And I just realized I never made a Clan leader or a med. cat. Oops. Medicine cat will probably appear, but Clan leader I don't have plans for… ugh.**

**Why are all of them weirdos? Ugh. Juniperpaw's the best. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello. I told you I update randomly! In fact, this will be so slow going (insert online classes, homework, and… life?)**

**Ok, replies.**

**Orange Peel 5: :) But what exactly are indecisive cats? Cats who can't make decisions or cats who can't decide who should be leader? XD**

**Mountainshine: (Mountainshine has asked me for the plot so now she knows everything that will happen pfffft there is no point in replying hehehehe)**

**KT-FeatherSage: I'm not really sick *coughs and has a headache* Roseshine is me on a daily basis! Juniperpaw is also me XD **

**DragonClan: (;**

**DappledleafTheBootiful: That can't be more boring than reviews with random text like "fggvdfghnb"! Yeah, for some reason my writing (and talking) style is just "blablabla boom they did some weirdo stuff why on earth lol let's move on" And I can't critic switch, I'm either screaming or walking in there, sword in hand, to fix every single grammatical mistake ever.**

**Sorry in advance for the weird POV switches (aka WE GET ROSESHINE POV BUT IT WON'T BE WHAT MOUNTAINSHINE EXPECTS HOPEFULLY) everywhere and the lack of anything happening at all… this was written across more than three days for some reason)**

Chapter 3: Very Weird

"Well?" Frostpaw made an attempt to make herself look threatening. "What's this prey-stealing MouseClanner doing here?"

Redpaw glared back. "Ask _her_!"

"_**Well?!**_"

In the end, Roseshine had to face two angry almost-warriors with faces of assassins fuming at her.

"Um. He's here. To teach you how to catch mice. Definitely. Because you… want to learn how to catch mice. Yes. Absolutely."

Redpaw looked unconvinced. "Absolutely. Obviously. Very much definitely."

Frostpaw looked at the ground. "Yes, uh, I wanted to learn how to catch mice. But… I never expected you to bring _him_… ughhhhh."

"WHAT DOES SHE EVEN WANT WITH MICE?!" Redpaw screeched in capslock. _If she wants mice so much, come take my place! I'd be happy to give her all the mice I have._

"Mice are nice," the two she-cats mumbled almost in unison.

Redpaw was… not unconvinced. He wasn't just unconvinced. He was absolutely suspicious, confused, unconvinced, unbelieving, weirded out.

But for Roseshine's sake, he decided to look convinced. "Fine. So what do I do?"

"Uh, I dunno, train me? Like not to fight but to kill mice?"

"...do you expect me to be your mentor too…"

Roseshine had a faint drifting-off expression, slightly unimpressed expression and I-regret-bringing-this-idiot-here expression on her face. The last one said it all.

Before she could say anything, though, an argument had started. _How? When? Wh-_

"It was better without you, big annoying lump!" This was Frostpaw.

"Well, I never asked to be your mentor!" Redpaw, obviously.

"_I _never asked for you to come!"

"Great, then I can leave?"

"Ask your mousebrain of a mentor! She brought you here. Who knows why? She never told me, that's for sure. That's one thing she didn't tell me. There's a lot she doesn't tell you.

Why did she even trust you with this?"

_NononononononononoshutupFrostpawshutupshutupshutuoshutupshutupshutup-_

She had no idea what happened next, but it was probably bad because the next thing she knew, Redpaw was looking at her with something she couldn't place in his eyes, there was blood (it was probably not hers) on the ground, and she didn't dare look at Frostpaw at all.

_So, uh… who did I kill this time?_

She sincerely hoped it was no one. But obviously, because Frostpaw _and _Redpaw were alive and in one piece right in front of her, it definitely was no one… unless what if some random rogues came and she killed them and she didn't know and they died and someone came to kill her as revenge and she killed then too and they destroyed her clan and everyone and then disaster…?!

There was no scent of rogues around.

Redpaw could not believe what he had just seen. Roseshine could fight? Usually she just… wasn't that fast or good at fighting. Mostly she gave up after a moon of training him to fight.

But she was pretty scary when she was mad, that much was true.

Like very, extremely quiet and then suddenly in ABSOLUTE ASSASSIN MODE. But wasn't trying to kill your own apprentice and some other annoying floofball against the warrior code?

Yes. Yes, it was. But it was very cool.

And creepy. Of course, everyone knew Roseshine was… weird. As in, very weird. As in, obviously, said a lot of un-making-sense things, never made eye contact to anyone (or if she ever managed to, stared at them for ages until they ran away into the sunset) and was just overall not there at all. How she got to be a mentor, no one knew.

_Roseshine gets weirder by the second. _

**Well, hi. I'm here. Uh… uh… uhhhhh…. *runs away at top speed* I'm sorry I turned Frostpaw into Natsuki (doki doki literature club!)! And Roseshine into something I can't describe! And Juniperpaw invisible! And Redpaw an empty shell! And the very, very boring ending.**

**Yeah, right. We all know I enjoyed that. **

**On a side note, any Hamilfans here? (I'm pretty sure I spelled that right for once. But autocorrect tries to turn it into Ham Fans.)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Enjoy this short horribleness. It will be the only chapter you get out of me until the end of the month. Congratulations.**

At night she lies awake, accompanied by nothing but her thoughts.

Her thoughts spiral between two.

The first one is the one she loves. The one who she always tries to impress. The one who she hates losing control in front of. The one who she supresses herself, changes herself, breaks herself for. The one who makes her hate herself for what she is, for how she is.

The second one is the one she hates. It is the one that makes her who she is. When her mind goes blank, it is the one that takes over. It is the one that makes her the outcast. It is the one that makes her forget. It is the one that controls her.

It is the one.

It is.

It is the one.

_She_ is the one.

**:D **

**All of them are sooo oBvIoUsssssss argh (another 11 pm idea) (which basically means I thought of it in the middle of the night and wrote it down so excuse the quality I have a different mindset at night XD)**

**Stay alive.**


End file.
